


Turned Down Every Hand

by Electra_XT



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Happy Ending, M/M, Pining, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-01 07:56:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20811695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Electra_XT/pseuds/Electra_XT
Summary: “Luther asked out Allison,” Klaus said, hopping up on the counter.Diego paused.It wasn’t even like it was a surprise. Everyone had seen the way Luther looked at Allison, big gentle doe eyes across the training room, the way he held out a gentlemanly hand to help her down from the Rolls-Royce when they came back to the mansion after a mission, the way he bit his lip whenever she brushed her hair over her shoulder. Or maybe not everyone was looking that closely, but Diego sat next to Number One at the table for every meal and he noticed.He noticed.





	Turned Down Every Hand

**Author's Note:**

> Everyone's living at the Academy; picture the kids all at about sixteen.
> 
> Title from "Geyser" by Mitski.

“A seismic event has rocked this household to its very core,” Klaus said, walking into the bathroom where Diego was standing in front of the mirror with half his face lathered and a razor in his hand.

Diego shot Klaus a truly exasperated look in the mirror. “You know what a closed door means, right?”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t closed,” Klaus said. He pinched his fingers almost together. “Teeny tiny crack that you maybe left by accident means I can come in. And I have news that I think you’ll want to hear.”

Diego ignored Klaus and ran the razor along his jaw.

“I _know_ you’ll want to hear it,” Klaus said, leaning in on the sink.

Diego contemplated telling Klaus he was busy, but if Klaus wasn’t deterred by now, he’d probably never be.

“If you go down to breakfast without knowing this succulent, vital piece of gossip, you will feel like the biggest fool on Earth.”

“Fine,” Diego said. He stroked the razor along his cheek again. “What’s so important you had to find me in the bathroom at seven in the morning to tell me about it?”

“Luther asked out Allison,” Klaus said, hopping up on the counter.

Diego paused.

It wasn’t even like it was a surprise. Everyone had seen the way Luther looked at Allison, big gentle doe eyes across the training room, the way he held out a gentlemanly hand to help her down from the Rolls-Royce when they came back to the mansion after a mission, the way he bit his lip whenever she brushed her hair over her shoulder. Or maybe not everyone was looking that closely, but Diego sat next to Number One at the table for every meal and he noticed.

He noticed.

“Good for him,” Diego said, pulling the razor across his face. His fingers were gripping the handle way too tightly. “I hope they’ll be happy together. Where’d he ask her out _to?_ Not much space for romance in this creepy-ass house.”

“I mean, it spans an entire city block,” Klaus said. “There’s room for everything in here if you try hard enough.”

He left a weird pause. Diego side-eyed him in the mirror.

“And anyway, she turned him down,” Klaus said.

Diego didn’t say anything. He finished shaving the right side of his face, rinsed his blade in the sink, and moved on to the left.

Luther had never been turned down for anything in his life. Diego knew, because he kept track of these things. Whenever Dad picked out the most reliable speaker to stand in front of the press and give a statement, whenever some criminal had eyed them all up and tried to take out the kid he thought was the strongest, whenever there was a poll in some frothy magazine about which Umbrella Academy heartthrob was the cutest, it was always Luther. Diego had stood in the shadows and watched his brother get chosen more times than he really wanted to think about. At this point, it hardly stung him anymore, anyway. Luther deserved it. It wasn’t like he wasn’t handsome and strong and whatever. It was just…

“She really turned him down?” Diego said, running the razor under his jaw.

“She really, really turned him down,” Klaus said, picking up Diego’s toothbrush. “Luther was crying.”

“The hell are you doing with my toothbrush?” Diego said.

“Oh, sorry,” Klaus said, putting it down.

“Wait,” Diego said. “Luther cried?”

“His eyes were all red when I saw him last night,” Klaus said, “and this morning when I snuck a look at him, too. Not a good night for ol’ Number One.”

“Luther cried,” Diego said. He looked at his half-shaved face in the mirror. “Because Allison turned him down.”

“Yes,” Klaus said patiently. “Allison broke Luther’s heart. Kind of. I’m hoping he’ll get over it, though, because it’s honestly freaking me out a little to see him so messed up.”

Diego brushed the razor over his cheek. Klaus was silent, and Diego bet he was thinking back to see if he’d ever seen Luther cry before, because Diego was doing the same thing. When they were six and there was a centipede in the training room, Klaus had cried, but Luther had killed it for him. (Actually, he’d torn a piece of paper from his notebook and ever-so-carefully scooped the bug onto it and set it free out the window.) When Five ran away, Vanya locked her bedroom door and didn’t come out for two days, but Luther had been stoic as a statue. The Eiffel Tower incident, the time Grace had malfunctioned and buffered every time she tried to say “I love you,” when Ben got cut in the leg during a raid on a library, the truly vicious fight that Allison and Klaus had gotten into last year; Luther never broke. The only time Diego had ever seen him close to cracking was when he’d accidentally broken Diego’s rib while sparring. Diego had a flash of memory of Luther staring down at him, completely pale, devastation written in the set of his eyebrows.

“He’ll be okay,” Klaus said. “You know he will be.”

“Luther can walk into a room of killer robots and dismantle them all without breaking a sweat,” Diego said, making a weird face at himself in the mirror as he shaved his cheek. “He’ll be fine.”

“You never know,” Klaus said. He clasped his hands to his bosom. “Matters of the heart are an entirely different beast, Diego.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Diego said. “Allison really turned him down, though?”

“We literally have been discussing this for minutes,” Klaus said.

“Why?” Diego said. He turned on the faucet and rinsed his razor, then set it to the side.

“As I said, matters of the heart,” Klaus said. “Total mystery. Although I’m planning to sneak out tonight and buy a new eyeshadow palette to bribe Allison to talk to me about it, so I’ll keep you posted. And you’ll see the two of them at breakfast, so you can use your expert sleuthing skills to figure it out.”

“Are you not surprised about this?” Diego said.

“Eh,” Klaus said. “I’ve given up on understanding heterosexuals at this point.”

“No, but seriously,” Diego said. “You could see Luther’s heart eyes from space. And Allison’s… Allison.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Diego picked up his washcloth and ran it over his cheek. “She’s just… Allison.”

“Oh, are we getting recursive?” Klaus said. “Is that an acceptable way to answer questions now? Because in that case, Allison turned down Luther because he’s Luther.”

Big hands, determined face, surprisingly gentle when he’d helped Diego up after breaking his rib. _I’ve got you, Diego. Okay?_

“It doesn’t make any sense that she’d turn him down, though,” Diego said, wiping off his face.

“I’ve completely lost track of this conversation,” Klaus said cheerfully. “I’m just watching you shave at this point.”

“Creep,” Diego said. He patted himself dry. “How do I look?”

“You missed a spot on your cheek, but you don’t have enough time to fix it before Mom rings the breakfast bell.”

“Shit,” Diego said. He touched the patch of stubble. “And you didn’t tell me?”

“I wanted to see if you’d catch it,” Klaus said, sliding down off the sink. “Also, you totally would have been like ‘Don’t tell me how to shave, Klaus.’”

“Don’t barge into the bathroom and watch me shave, Klaus,” Diego said. “It’s not too noticeable, is it?”

“Nope,” Klaus said. “I only saw it because I’ve been watching your every move.”

Diego gave him a long-suffering look.

“And don’t worry,” Klaus said, setting his hand on Diego’s shoulder. “Everyone will be distracted by watching Allison and Luther not look at each other.”

“Right,” Diego said.

“And you will be distracted by the moral dilemma of how long the grace period is before you can proposition your preferred sibling,” Klaus said, slipping past Diego and opening the door. “See you at breakfast, Diego.”

“What the hell?” Diego said, heart beating uncomfortably fast, as Klaus disappeared into the hallway and Diego only had himself to look at in the mirror.

“Could you pass the orange juice?” Allison said.

Luther froze. Ben lowered his book and watched as Luther painstakingly picked up the carafe and slid it to Allison’s place without looking at her. His eyes were heavy and shadowed, like he hadn’t slept at all.

“Thank you,” Allison said quietly, picking up the orange juice and pouring herself a glass.

“You’re welcome,” Luther said hollowly, returning to his plate of six eggs.

Diego picked up a piece of toast. Luther looked even more haunted than Klaus after a bad night. His shoulders were turned in, hunched like he needed to protect himself, even though he was done up in his Number One uniform as always. His blond hair was a tousled like he’d forgotten to even think about combing it.

There was a tap on the table and Diego looked up.

_This is so fucked up!_ Klaus mouthed at him.

Diego rolled his eyes. Now that Allison and Luther were both in front of him and refusing to look at each other, the whole situation didn’t feel like scandalous gossip. It was uncomfortable and sad, like seeing a dead bird on the sidewalk. Even Vanya was eyeing Allison with apprehension.

“May I be excused?” Luther said.

His voice cut out loudly across the unusually subdued table. The usual old record spun on the dusty phonograph at the corner of the room, droning out instructions for how to perform CPR on semi-human entities, but no one ever listened to that. 

Reginald looked up at Luther out of his monocle.

“For what reason, Number One?” he asked.

“I didn’t get the punch technique combination right yesterday during training, sir,” Luther said. “And I know you expect the very best out of all of us, and it’s redundant to spend too long on the same section of the curriculum, so I thought I’d practice before the morning session.”

If this had happened any other day, Diego would have dismissed it as ass-kissing, but Luther’s jaw was horribly tight as he spoke.

“You may be excused,” Reginald said. “See to it that you arrive to training punctually after the allowed period of after-breakfast digestion.”

“Thank you, sir,” Luther said, and he turned and walked down the hallway.

Diego watched him leave. When Reginald cleared his throat to let them all know that the spectacle was done, Diego turned back to his toast, but it tasted like cardboard. Klaus was probably trying to catch his eye. Dad was probably trying to give him a repressive glare.

“You know what?” Diego said, setting down his toast.

Reginald turned to him. “Number Two—”

“I’m done eating,” Diego said, shoving back his chair and standing up. “I’m gonna go practice yesterday’s whatever too. Not like you’ve ever thought I did anything to your standards anyway, right?”

“Number Two,” Reginald said. “Sit back down immediately.”

“Don’t worry, Dad,” Diego said. “I’ll arrive punctually for training.”

Everyone was looking at him now. Diego caught no one’s eye, did a sanctimonious little bow, and headed off down the hallway.

The adrenaline of shaking off Dad’s orders still burned in Diego’s nerves as he came up the stairs two at a time, but as he approached Luther’s door, the conviction drained out of him. He came to a stop at the shut door and held his breath, trying to tune out the hiss of the heating system, the muffled sound of the CPR record downstairs, and listened as hard as he could.

A creaking noise and a thump. A creak and a thump. Creak, thump, creak, thump, a pattern, a little noise that might have been a huff of Luther’s breath. Diego closed his eyes and listened harder. It wasn’t exactly tears, but he had zero idea what else it could be.

“He’s probably doing push-ups,” a voice said quietly behind him. “I think that’s what he does when he’s upset.”

Diego turned, hand reflexively on his hip for his knife, but he let it fall to his side when he saw Allison standing behind him.

“You’ve got nerve coming up here,” he said.

“I take it you heard what happened,” Allison said. Her face was made up as usual, but it sort of looked like a mask.

“Klaus came in while I was shaving this morning and told me,” Diego said, and then he winced. Too much information. Allison didn’t need to know that he let Klaus hang around him all the time.

“What did he tell you?” Allison said.

“Luther asked you out and you turned him down,” Diego said.

Allison closed her eyes. “Yeah.”

“Why?” Diego said.

Allison looked over his shoulder at Luther’s closed door, then motioned for Diego to follow her into her room. Diego went with her, closing the door behind them, and Allison sat down on her unmade bed.

“What’d he do to make you turn him down?” Diego said, folding his arms and leaning against the wall.

“You can sit down if you want,” Allison said.

“Nah, I’m good,” Diego said.

“It feels weird that you’re standing and I’m sitting.”

“Let’s get back to talking about how you fucked Luther up,” Diego said. “You see him at breakfast this morning? It’s like he didn’t sleep all night.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Allison gave Diego a pained look and then she buried her face in her hands. She wasn’t crying, but she was sitting completely still, like she was trying to hold her breath and tell herself to get it together, and it might have been worse. Diego looked away at the photographs pinned to her vanity. This morning sucked.

“The thing is I don’t regret it,” Allison said, bringing her head up out of her hands. She looked at Diego, exhausted. “I didn’t get any sleep last night either.”

“You don’t look it,” Diego said.

“Yeah, well, if Luther had gotten up forty-five minutes early to put on concealer, maybe he wouldn’t either,” Allison said. “Look. Can I trust you to not spread this around?”

“‘Course,” Diego said. “What happened?”

“I feel like you need to hear the story from someone other than Klaus,” Allison said.

“Right,” Diego said.

“So,” Allison said, “last night, after training, Luther found me as I was, like, coming upstairs. And he was like, ‘Can I talk to you?’ And I was like, ‘Okay?’ And he was standing there with a look on his face that I’d only ever seen when he was… I don’t know. He looked scared.”

“Only ever seen when he was what?” Diego said.

“It doesn’t matter,” Allison said, looking down at her hands. “He reached into his pocket and took out this little box and I was like, ‘Are you proposing to me?’ He laughed a little but mostly he just turned red, and then he opened it, and it was this necklace, a little gold heart pendant that he’d clearly spent some money on, and he looked up at me and told me—”

Diego watched Allison close her eyes.

“He said he didn’t want to impose and I could say no if I wanted. He said he wouldn’t be offended. But he’d been looking at me an awful lot lately, and he thought I’d been looking back, and it would really be fine if I said no but did I want to sneak out with him some night and sit up in the greenhouse?

“No pressure, of course.”

“And you said no,” Diego said.

“I said no,” Allison said, looking up at him.

“Why not?” Diego said. He folded his arms around himself a little tighter. “Seems like a hell of an offer to me.”

“Does it?” Allison said. She stood up and came over to lean against the wall next to him.

“Is this a trick question?” Diego said. “You two have been looking at each other like an old married couple since we were twelve, and now he finally asks you out and does all the romantic shit you like—”

“Who ever said I liked romantic shit?”

Diego flapped his hand dismissively. “Everyone likes that kind of thing.”

“Do you?”

“That’s not the point,” Diego said, cracking his knuckles. “I thought you had a crush on Luther.”

Allison gave him a look he couldn’t quite interpret. “Why?”

“Why wouldn’t you?” Diego said. “He’s got everything you could want, right? Look, I’ve got my issues with the guy, but I get it. I mean, probably. He’s objectively pretty good-looking, I guess.”

Allison was still looking at him.

“Not that I’m paying attention,” Diego muttered.

“Of course not,” Allison said, but she sounded a little too amused.

Irritation sparked in Diego’s gut. “Don’t.”

Allison sighed. “I don’t want a committed relationship, anyway. Not unless it’s the perfect person at the perfect time. You know?”

“Perfect person, huh?” Diego said.

“Yeah.”

“Lot to live up to.”

“It’ll happen if it’ll happen. I don’t intend to force it.”

“Uh huh,” Diego said. Allison was looking at him, eyes soft, languid, and Diego could feel his pulse in his fingers. 

“I’m just counting on being in the right place at the right time,” Allison said quietly.

There was something important here. Diego felt like there was a moment, a Moment, that he was missing, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. Allison was close enough for Diego to smell the product in her hair. 

_You will be distracted by the moral dilemma of how long the grace period is before you can proposition your preferred sibling._

Diego grabbed Allison’s shoulder and tilted his face to meet hers.

It was a messy kiss. Allison’s lips were covered in too-dry lipstick and Diego was clutching her shoulder a little too hard, he could feel her breathing catch and hear the little noise she made— or was he the one making the noise?— and when Diego opened his mouth Allison’s tongue felt foreign against his lips. Allison broke away.

“What was that?” Diego said.

“You started it,” Allison said. She looked a little queasy.

“You put your tongue in my mouth,” Diego said.

“You opened your mouth in the first place.”

Diego had to resist the urge to touch his lips. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been checking out Allison— they all had, right? Klaus wasn’t even into women and he definitely had, Luther clearly had, even Vanya was probably looking. And this was the right place, right time, right? Allison pressed her lips together and Diego wondered if she was trying to rid herself of the feeling of him; the memory of the kiss.

“Don’t do this,” Allison said.

Was this what it was like to get what he wanted? 

“My bad,” Diego said. “My bad.”

“That,” Allison said, “was.”

“Yeah,” Diego said, running a hand through his hair, “we can never talk about that again, if that’s all right with you.”

“More than all right,” Allison said.

Diego shook his head again. Allison exhaled.

“You want to know why I really turned down Luther?” she said quietly.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to get out of you all this time,” Diego said.

“I told him I thought he was hung up on someone else,” Allison said.

There was a pause.

“Who?” Diego said.

“Do you seriously not know?” Allison said.

“Not Klaus,” Diego said. “Don’t fucking tell me it’s Klaus.”

“It’s not Klaus,” Allison said with a little laugh.

“Ben?” Diego said. “I can kind of see it. Ben’s not not hot.”

“Diego,” Allison said.

“There’s Vanya,” Diego said. “Number One and Number Seven, I don’t know, maybe they think that means something.”

_“Diego,”_ Allison said. “Use your mind for one single second.”

Diego stilled.

Allison carefully rubbed her eyes, like she was trying not to mess up her mascara. “So… yeah.”

“That’s,” Diego said, “that’s not possible. He hates me.”

“Does he hate you, or are you just dicks to each other?” Allison said. “Because you’re a dick to everybody, so you’re automatically halfway there.”

“I mean, I feel bad for him, because I’m not hung up on him,” Diego said. “I spent time with him, but it’s only out of, I don’t know, pity. Because he’s got everything— I mean, he’s attractive, it doesn’t mean anything that I’ve noticed that, I see him in the training room ripped as shit with all those muscles and I can’t not look, it’s not anything personal— and he’s Number One and actually believes it even when he’s a pain in the ass, and he actually cares so much, and he does physics, like some kind of earnest fucking dweeb—”

The bell for training rang, crisp and loud.

“You should talk to him,” Allison said, standing up.

Diego looked at her. “I’m not—”

Allison squeezed his shoulder, then disappeared down the hallway.

It took a couple of knocks for Luther to open the door.

“Hi,” Diego said, and then he winced.

“Hey,” Luther said. “What are you, uh, doing?”

“Can’t I just check in on you?” Diego said.

“You don’t have to,” Luther said.

“Since when does obligation ever make me do anything?” Diego said. “Let me in.”

“I suppose I can’t stop you,” Luther said, stepping aside. “Why are you really here?”

“Really, really checking on you,” Diego said.

“Huh,” Luther said, as Diego walked inside.

Luther’s room was always painfully neat. Diego’s room was essentially his miniature cave where he recharged after training and having to spend time with people who were related to him, but Luther’s bedroom looked halfway between an office and a suspiciously perfect movie set of a teenager’s bedroom. Diego ran his hand over the bookshelf. All the spines were pushed in carefully at the exact same distance, and Christ, they were arranged in alphabetical order.

Which meant Luther must have _put_ them that way.

“Everyone’s been talking about me, haven’t they?” Luther said behind him.

“Little bit,” Diego said. “We all think you’ve been up here doing push-ups and trying to sink into the floor from despair.”

“Push-ups?”

“Allison thought she heard you doing them,” Diego said.

“Allison really said that about me?” Luther said. “She thinks I’ve been up here working out?”

“Yeah,” Diego said. “Breakups, man. I could believe it.”

“It wasn’t a breakup,” Luther said, cloud returning to his face.

Right.

“So what _have_ you been doing?” Diego said.

Luther shrugged. “Reading. Thinking. I don’t know, I don’t really… I suppose I could work out, but it never really works for me.”

“Never makes you feel better?” Diego said.

“No, it just doesn’t work,” Luther said. “I have to do a couple hundred reps before I feel anything.”

Diego shook his head. “Damn.”

“Don’t make it weird,” Luther said. He waved his hand. “I know the powers are— I know. I’m not in the mood for compliments.”

“Uh huh,” Diego said. He bit back a comment, because imagine being so sure you’d get compliments that you could not be in the mood for them, but this wasn’t the time. “We thought you were for sure doing push-ups, though, we heard this thumping noise.”

“Oh,” Luther said, scratching his head. “Yeah, I was pacing, but my room’s too small to really pace, so it’s mostly floorboard creaking.” He frowned. “What kind of push-ups have you been doing? Pacing doesn’t sound like working out at all.”

“Allison’s idea, not mine,” Diego said. “Also, if you were pacing in that tiny-ass room for that long, I’m legit worried about you, man.”

“You don’t need to check in on me,” Luther said, shifting his weight. “I promise I’m all right, Diego. You don’t have to worry.”

Diego looked up at him. It used to bother him that Luther was taller than him— probably would still bother him tomorrow morning when he came to his senses, but right now he was looking up into Luther’s eyes, face tipped upwards, and he didn’t mind it at all. Luther was looking at him, really looking at him, rapt, and Diego felt something shift into place, something illuminating like sun from behind a cloud, and there was a chance, he realized, that he might actually have a shot.

“Allison rejecting you isn’t the end of the world,” he said. “You know that, right?”

“I said I didn’t need you to console me,” Luther said.

“Plenty of fish in the sea,” Diego said. “You’ll find someone.”

“I said—” Luther started, and Diego held up a hand.

“I said you’ll find someone,” he said, and he leaned in and he kissed him.

**Author's Note:**

> [electra-xt](https://electra-xt.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr, taking prompts, come talk to me about TUA!


End file.
